Confessions of a Transylvanian (35 page)

The final score was: Deerfield 24, Hollywood 16.

We had trounced the hated Hollywood Rocky cast and we had done it (and this is being generous), with about fifteen functioning brain cells between us.

Marshall, Robby, Shelly and the rest of the Twinkies (as we dubbed them) were all gracious in their defeat (certainly more gracious than we would have been, had the tables been turned). In a rare moment of detente, we all gathered on the field afterward to toast the first coming together of the two casts.

Fresh from our victory, the Deerfield cast members were in magnanimous moods and none of the rancor toward our Hollywood rivals was present, at least for this brief cease-fire. (Some of this uncharacteristic magnanimity could well be attributed to our current state of narcotic stimulation, but
I’
d also like to give the ex-Hollywooders some credit for their generosity of spirit.)

Introductions were made, stories were told, hatchets were buried.

It was decided that a party at the Orphanage was in order so we all piled into our cars and took off. All those vehicles exiting the parking lot at once caused a minor traffic jam on the narrow road that led away from the ball field, and at one point we all found ourselves in a long convoy headed toward I-95.

I do
n’
t know exactly what happened (something darted out into the road, perhaps), but whatever it was caused the lead car to very suddenly apply their brakes, leading to a chain reaction of quick, jerky stops like a row of dominos tumbling. There were, thankfully, no fender-benders and, with only one exception, nobody was hurt.

Unfortunately, the somebody who got hurt...was Ron. He had been riding in Chery
l’
s car without a seat belt and when she slammed on her brakes, Ron went flying into her windshield. Cheryl threw the car into park and called out for help. We all rushed to see what had happened.

Ron had a thin trickle of blood seeping down his face but insisted that he was fine. The shattered windshield on Chery
l’
s car appeared to suggest otherwise, but after we got back to the Orphanage, a bandage seemed to patch him up just fine.

It was strange. This had been the second time Ro
n’
s face and a car windshield had been on adversarial terms in less than a year. It crossed my mind that he seemed to be some kind of accident magnet.

Turned out, I could not have been more tragically right.

15

Give Yourself Over To Absolute Pleasure

I
’
ve spent an awful lot of time in these pages ragging on the
'
80s and on South Florida in general so, in the interest of fairness,
I’
d like to give the early
'
80s just a tiny bit of credit: If there was one thing this particular era got absolutely right, it was the development of one of the greatest fashion trends of all time. You see, if it was
n’
t for the early 1980s, we would
n’
t have that miracle fabric:

Spandex.

True, Spandex has developed a bad reputation over the years due primarily to the manufacture
r’
s attempt to (literally) broaden their customer base by making the pants in larger and larger sizes (triggering gag reflexes all over this great land of ours).

But back when Spandex was first released, and young girls started painting these leggings onto their shapely young thighs and buttocks, well...it was as if the fashion gods had looked down on every teenage boy in America and decided, “You know what? Le
t’
s have Christmas early this year.”

It was
fan-damn-tastic
.

In the Rocky world, of course, Spandex was even more prevalent, ever since school administrators created strict rules prohibiting young girls from wearing these outfits on campus. This, in turn, provoked the girls into wearing them whenever they
were
n’
t
at school, just to snub their noses at the school officials.

You want to make something popular? Ban it.

This development suited me and every other guy my age just fine and dandy, thank you very much.

It was win-win no matter how you sliced it. At the Rocky show, girls would arrive at the theater in Spandex pants and clingy shirts. They would then take
off
these outfits and put on tube tops, maid outfits and fishnet stockings and parade around for two hours in tarty makeup. After that, they would strip off the lingerie and slip
back
into the Spandex.

Yeah. It was horrible.

And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes: The parking lot of the Ultravision was occasionally the setting for some pretty serious pre-show and post-show monkey business, no question about it. Some cast members seemed to be under the impression that they could
n’
t bring their A-game to the show without a
full release
before things got under way.

We even had a term for it: scromping.

If you felt the need to get your rocks off prior to the movie, you nipped off and had a scromp. Nothing wrong with that. It was as natural as can be.

But once you got in the theater, it was all business. There was no messing about once the show was in full swing.

Well...that was the rule, anyway. But there was that one little incident...

Tom called in sick one night in July. As a result, someone was needed up on the lighting deck to run the spotlight. Russ, perhaps because he knew the show better than anyone else, volunteered to take over for the evening and just as the pre-show began he took his position.

The thing about the lighting deck was this: Unless you had a ladder to get up to it, the deck itself was completely inaccessible. It was located just underneath the projection booth at the back of the theater and just above the entranceway. It was a tiny, rectangular area about nine feet off the ground with nothing more up there than a chair and an enormous spotlight. (I suspect Tom also kept a cooler full of beverages on hand, too, but that was only a rumor.)

The pre-show kicked off and Russ hit me with the light, just as Tom had done for months. I did my thing, getting the crowd nice and revved up. When I was finished, Russ snapped off the spotlight and the theater lights dimmed for the previews. This would be Rus
s’
s official break, as it was the only time in the next couple of hours where the spotlight would be unnecessary. He could take a time-out until Andrea and Sunday started up “Science Fiction” at the top of the movie.

As I made my way out of the theater and into the ladies room to change into my full Transylvanian outfit (Kenny was pulling Riff duty this night), I happened to spot Jill making her cautious way up the ladder to the lighting deck. I did
n’
t really think much of it, really, as (a) Jill was Rus
s’
s girlfriend and (b) she would
n’
t be needed on stage until the end of the night when she went on as Floor Show Janet. Still, seeing a scantily clad bombshell dangling high above you in nothing but a black teddy and a pair of garters is the kind of thing that grabs your attention so, naturally, I noticed.

I also noticed, on my way back to the theater, that the ladder leading up to the deck...had disappeared.

Clearly, Russ and Jill were desirous of some privacy up there and, after all, who was I to deny them their rendezvous?

I will go out on a limb and say that if there was anyone who could have timed a scromp to coincide exactly with the necessary lighting needs of the Rocky show, Russ was the man for the job. He knew the movie backward and, should he choose to be derelict in his duties for the requisite time it would take him to attend to business, there is no doubt that he would choose wisely.

This he did.

Russ, thinking quickly (and perhaps not
entirely
with his brain), chose the perfect spot to leave his light unattended: the driving scene with Janet and Brad. For those few minutes, the spotlight just sits there, trained on the two youngsters in the vehicle. Soon afterward, of course, they are up, moving around and singing “Over at the Frankenstein Place.” But if you time it right and can do what you need to do very, very quickly, you could conceivably pull off whatever you need to pull off and no one would be the wiser.

Russ, needless to say, did not time it right. Not one little bit, in fact.

As Brad offered to leave the car and head back to the castle, Ron did the same on stage. Tracey, as Janet, offered to go with him. Brad/Ron protested that there was little sense in the both of them getting wet, but Janet/Tracey insisted, saying: “Besides, darling, the owner of that phone might be a beautiful woman and you might never come back again.” Brad/Ron laughed, they got out of the car, the tire got kicked and the song began.

In a perfect world, the beam of light is supposed to follow Brad and Janet as they approach the castle singing their song.

Theoretically.

Instead, Tracey and Ron got out of the “car” and made their way toward the castle in utter and complete blackness.

And the spotlight stayed on the car.

The song continued. Tracey and Ron sang on, doing the blocking they had been performing for months and making their way across the stage as the squirt guns filled the air with water.

The spotlight, however, stayed on the car.

It was
n’
t until Rif
f’
s entrance was approaching that Steve, in his Transylvanian attire, arrived in the hallway under the lighting deck and started calling frantically up to Russ.

“
Russ!
” he tried to both yell and whisper at the same time. “
Russ! Are you up there?
”

Nothing from the deck.

The spotlight stayed, inexplicably, on the car.

Seeing Steve under the deck as I re-entered the theatre, I stopped to ask him what was going on.

“
The light!
” Steve hissed. “
It is
n’
t moving!
”

He turned his attention to the lighting deck again.

“
RUSS!
” Steve called up. “
ARE YOU THERE?
”

Cheryl and Felicia, by this time, had joined Steve and I, both girls wide-eyed as the spotlight remained frozen in place.

“
Is he there?
” Felicia demanded.

“
I do
n’
t know!
” Steve replied, looking scared to death. “
I’
ve been calling up to him but he has
n’
t said anything!
”

“
Do you think h
e’
s okay? Should we get help?
” Cheryl sounded panicked.

“
Let me try to climb up there, see if h
e’
s all right. Maybe he...hit his head or something! I do
n’
t know!
”

Steve attempted to scale the wall, but there were no handholds, nothing to step on and nothing to use as leverage. It was a completely smooth nine-foot wall and there was simply no way he was going to climb it.

The girls and I attempted to hoist him up, but after he fell once, we decided against trying again.

By the way, the spotlight, in case you were wondering, remained fixed on the car.

The crowd under the lighting deck by this time was becoming a regular mob and the tension was getting thick. Also, all pretense of trying to keep their voices down had been discarded. Finally, Tony strolled up and surveyed the situation.

“Hold on a minute,” Tony called out to the crowd, silencing them. “Le
t’
s find out what the fuck is going on.” He looked up at the deck. “RUSS!!” Tony hollered. “Goddamn it, Russ, answer me! Are you all right up there?”

In the moment after Tony called out, there was an audible moan from up above. It was not, however, a moan of distress. It was, instead, a very clear moan of pleasure. One might also describe it as a moan of...utter satisfaction. Hearing this sound (and believe me, everyone in Broward County heard it), we all knew precisely why the spotlight had never strayed from the car.

Tony, sharing in our moment of clarity, was extremely displeased.

“Jesus
Christ
, Russ,” he called up. “Will you fucking pull out and start running the lights, goddamn it? W
e’
ve got a show to do!”

Seconds later, the spotlight jumped to life and caught Riff and Magenta just about to start the Time Warp. A voice drifted down from above:

“Everythin
g’
s under control.” Russ called down in a very, very relaxed voice. “You can get back to work now.
I’
m all good.”

At this, all of the Transylvanians darted for the stage in order to be in place for their big number. Tony stalked away disgustedly.

“Boy, you try to run a professional show,” he mumbled. “And this bullshit happens.”

A couple of minutes later, the ladder once again snaked its way down the wall and Jill, looking a trifle sheepish about the whole business, made her way shakily down the rungs.

Forever afterward, guests were forbidden from setting foot on the lighting deck. It was, of course, a good and necessary rule. But to be honest, it was a little like shutting the barn door after the horse has been delightfully laid, if you ask me.

When yo
u’
re dealing with a show like Rocky, involving late-night ribaldry, girls in skimpy clothes and an auditorium open to the public, yo
u’
re bound to have your occasional troublemaker or two show up and make trouble. It could hardly be avoided.

When these ugly moments occurred, we had a crack team that sprang into action:

First, w
e’
d send the girls. Generally speaking, a group of drunken louts could be handled easily by Storme and one or two of the other young Transylvanians. All they wanted was attention, so we doled out a tiny bit to tide them over and it usually sufficed.

Sometimes, however, they were not satisfied with our female offering and would either demand a bit
more
attention or, in some cases, would ask for something inappropriate from one of our young ladies.

At this point, the second wave would move in, usually Russ (who was Mr. Reasonable) or sometimes the theater management, to explain very patiently to the loudmouths that as long as they were willing to behave, they were welcome to stay, but if they insisted on raising the temperature in the room, they would be escorted out.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that would do it. Most people are fairly respectful of authority, especially when those in power are being respectful themselves.